Yahtzee Croshaw (Zero Punctuation, Fully Ramblomatic)

Not sure about anybody else, but the design he's going for is definitely the horror that works on me.

I'm not at all shocked about this, we share similar tastes in a lot of things.

I'm just amazed at how fast he's able to churn out such cool games. He must really know a lot about game design.

Wolfestein: Youngblood

In case you're in a hurry: don't worry! Like all single-player focused games forced to become multiplayer, it is shit.

Ah, why does the AAA games industry continue to commit such elementary and profound mistakes? It's almost like the people who run the companies don't give a fuck about releasing quality products.

Bethesda stop giving a fuck for a long time now. New Skyrim looking pretty grim right now.

If it's shallow, boring and unoriginal, but it sells, it's a win in the eyes of the guys that call the shots.

Speaking of elementary and profound mistakes, this week's episode (for the YouTube schlubs, anyway) is Horace, an indie pixel-art platformer that Yahtzee was prepared to recommend for the first week or so of playing it. After the second, it became apparent that this is someone's spoiled love child and, like a properly spoiled love child, they never learned how to tell it "no".

The Escapist forgot the end title cards (and music) when they posted this video.

Next week, or this week if you are a decadent, privileged individual who is able to use The Escapist's website, is Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. I've never heard of the first game. Indie space sims have a way of being terrible, but I'm always looking out for this genre so it'll be interesting to hear what Yahtzee thinks.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 21st 2019 at 12:45:27 PM

That second sentence at the start has to be on the podium for most tortured similes Yahtzee's ever used.

What, the condom joke? Loved it.

You might not like it, but that's what peak Yahtzee sounds like.

Hey, I'm not knocking it. But I (ESL) legitimately had to rewind the video to take it all in.

It's funny because lately, I've had a lot of ideas for a game I've dreamed of making, but they're pretty much all ideas for the story. I've barely thought about the actual gameplay.

Of course, I know I have no realistic prospects of actually making a meaningful game and that even for a professional indie developer, the odds of success nowadays are infinitesimal. But if I were willing to burn seven years of my life on such a project, it would probably end up with similar issues to Horace.

So I was bored and rewatching some old ZP reviews, when something startled me: I cannot believe it took me this long to notice what the joke on the F Na F review was:

The phrase at the outro is still the best he came up with too: "It’s so hard being a giant pussy because I can’t watch porn without weeping".

New Dev Diary, as always the last game finished (A Day in the Life of Erich Zahn) can be downloaded from the description:

If you've been keeping up with current events in US Politics, you might see the punchline coming from quite a few miles.

As an aside: being a big fan of Recettear, I'm glad the game is still giving people stuff to talk about after so long.

I mean the game is what, a decade old now? Some games out there are lucky if people are still talking about them weeks after the release.

Edited by HailMuffins on Aug 27th 2019 at 1:18:21 PM

Recettear is one of those games that got stuff right, and is now considered a bit of a gold standard in its (niche) genre.

I went back and rewatched the previous dev diaries. It almost makes me want to make a game of my own. If Yatzhee can make 12 games in 12 months, I don't have as much of an excuse. (Admittedly, Yatzhee is way more experienced at this, since he's made tons of games before)

speaking of which, ive always wanted him to do a ZP episode on his Chzo Mythos games, maybe during the summer drought. the LP on lparchive.org includes some of the commentary he made on the games while it was going on, and id like to see him flesh out those thoughts more. 7 Days a Skeptic particularly deserves a good tearing into.

That Erich Zahn game is something I might seriously consider giving a play to.

He did so-called Ego Reviews on the series on Let's Drown Out - you can find those on his personal You Tube channel.

@storyyeller: Just do it like him and start really small.

It's the most cliched but also the most true advice you can give to any new game dev, be they aiming for a professional level or just a hobbyist.

Finishing a game, not matter how simple or rough, will give a ton of motivation to do another one; getting bogged down with a big one earns you nothing but frustration.

My personal problem with games is that nothing is ever "finished" in my mind. I'm a Serial Tweaker when it comes to programming.

Down such a road lies only Horace.

Not that it isn't a problem in other artistic endeavors, ofc, but the greatest skill a game dev can acquire is to learn how to stop at the "good enough" level.

No one will ever reach perfection, so set a deadline, do your best whithin it, and when you're done move on to the next project.

It's pretty much the raison d'être for the whole Dev Diary series, really.

There's a lot of merit in that. When I was in high school and college, I made a game, but I spent over two years working on it off and on.

Speaking of which, Pickory is an example of how not to do a game in more ways than one. Since I was making whatever seemed cool and appealed to me, basically every level uses different mechanics, and in some cases turns into a completely different genre. It sounds like Horace has a bit of that problem as well.

It was also really hurt by my refusal to listen to feedback and implement IWBTG style variable height jumping. I originally didn't know IWBTG had variable height jumping, hence why Pickory doesn't have it, but I should have implemented it when people first started complaining about it. Keeping the fixed height jumping turned off a lot of IWBTG fans, which was of course the main target audience.

Edited by storyyeller on Aug 28th 2019 at 10:03:30 AM

As I mentioned it a bit earlier, here's the first episode Ego Review Yahtzee (and his friend Gabe) did on 5 Days a Stranger - Yahtzee did videos on all of the series' games.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 28th 2019 at 5:06:32 PM

"basically every level uses different mechanics, and in some cases turns into a completely different genre. It sounds like Horace has a bit of that problem as well."

Sounds like Horace had that problem in terms of plot and setting, jumping from one style to another, but keeping the gameplay to platforming. I.e. same problem but in a different area than yours.

Edited by Adannor on Aug 28th 2019 at 6:11:07 PM